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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: Dutch and English accents
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References: <DA7opG.L6z@statsci.com> <3s2a7j$88d@gordon.enea.se> <rte-1906951545240001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <3sk041$7n1@gordon.enea.se>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 22:51:02 GMT
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In article <3sk041$7n1@gordon.enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
wrote:

> Ralph T. Edwards (rte@elmo.lz.att.com) writes:
...
> 
RTE But seriously, if you discussed which features, perhaps we could correlate
> >what you find "ugly" with some preprogrammed attitude as to what you find
> >ugly in your own language's varieties.
> 
ES Hm, I don't think I'm able to quantify this well enough for a sub-
> stantial discussion, but three features come into my mind directly:
> - "dance", "can't" etc being pronounced with /&:/ rather than with
>   /A:/ or /a/.
> - "letter" pronounced with a voiced middle consonant.
> - Mute "r" being pronounced.
> 

Well, two out of three are innovations in Britain.  you just don't like
18th century English.  Not all Americans pronounce ladder and latter
alike.  I don't.
But you might not be able to hear the difference.  /k&nt/ and /kar/ for
can't and car can be heard in Britain too.  Listen to Sting sing Lady in
Red.  He can't make up his mind how to pronounce dance and chance. 
Interestingly the broad a of can't and dropped Rs are the features of
Southern English I find most distracting.  Of course I know my opinion is
arbitrary.  It's distracting because it sets off phoneme violation alarms
in my mind.  Since you learned the other way of doing things, the American
A's and R's set off alarms in your mind.


> Another factor is that Americans tends to speak quite loud. When I
> travel on holiday trips in Europe, I can often the American tourists'
> conversation even if they are at a distance.

This is true.  Must be New Yorkers :->.

> 
> Then there are other yet another extralingual factors such as my
> perception Americans and good taste, which tends to be negative.

Should Brits be judged by traveling soccer fans?  Watch out about judging
groups by tourists.

> 
> To go back to spoken language, I would like to add there is a great
> difference between Americans (as if you didn't know). I played a live 
> disc with Frank Zappa, and his stage chat was very well-articulated.
> (Although he was in Europe, and may consciously have adopted his
> speech thereafter.) On the other hand, listening to Jimmy Carter,
> was like listening to a herd of sheep.

Zappa's speech is representative of Educated Americans from the north and west.
Carter's is regional.

> -- 
> Erland Sommarskog, sommar@enea.se, Stockholm

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
